Essays in Idleness

The new idealism

“Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“Ideally, yes.”

“And do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

“Yes, in principle.”

“Then I join you in official matrimony subject to the laws of the Province of Ontario, and the most recent pronouncements of the Holy See.”

Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini, &c.

*

Now, strictly speaking, under Ontario law, there are no longer such things as man, woman, husband, wife, (father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, &c), so the form may be contested in the courts eventually. Then perhaps: “Do you take this person to be your lawfully wedded spouse?”

*

Certainly the last time I attended a wedding in a Catholic church, the priest (a Basilian) substituted the word “person” for each party, although it seemed to me that one was male and the other female, and they were dressed in the contrasting, “wedding cake” manner.

After the administration of the Sacrament, if indeed it was administered, the biological mother of the soi-disant “bride” had tears in her eyes. She said, “I’m so glad N. and M. decided to have a traditional wedding in the old way. That’s what the Church is for.”

Another attendee, known to me at least as a good drinking companion, though not in any sense a Christian, approached me all smiles with his wife, mistress, or partner, whom I had not previously met. (How odd this gentleman looked in a suit. How strangely “normal” the woman looked beside him.)

In his benevolence, he warned her that I am some kind of Roman dinosaur.